8: Revert This Mistake

My body felt locked in place, like my mind hadn’t caught up with what my eyes were seeing.

Raguel stood still in front of me.

The boys were shaking with terror, looking like they were about to piss in their pants.

“Alpha,” the leader choked out, his arrogance replaced by a whimpering terror. “We—we didn’t know.”

Raguel didn’t even look at him.

“Did I give you permission to speak?” he asked quietly.

The boy’s mouth snapped shut.

Raguel moved like a shadow in a blur. One second, he was standing behind me, and the next minute, he had the leader of the boys by the throat. He lifted off the ground like he weighed nothing.

A choked sound left the boy’s mouth as his feet kicked uselessly in the air.

My breath caught.

“Alpha—” one of the other boys tried.

Raguel turned his head slightly, and that was all it took.

The boy flew back, his body denting a metal dumpster twenty feet away with a sickening clang.

“What did I tell you,” Raguel said again, his voice still calm, still controlled, “about straying from your boundaries?”

The one in his grip clawed weakly at his wrist.

“Forgive us, Alpha…” he rasped.

Raguel released him abruptly, and the boy dropped to the ground with a sickening thud, coughing violently.

The other two scrambled closer immediately and knelt, keeping their heads bowed.

“Alpha! Please!” the leader shrieked, crawling back toward Raguel on his hands and knees. He didn’t even try to stand. “We didn’t know! We thought she was just a stray!”

The other two joined him, flanking Raguel’s boots, their heads bowed so low they were nearly touching the pavement. “Forgive us, Alpha. We made a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Raguel repeated.

There was something in his tone that made my stomach twist.

“You call this a mistake?”

“No, Alpha,” the third one said quickly, pressing his forehead to the ground. “It won’t happen again. We swear. We were just… we were just blowing off steam.”

Raguel looked down at them, his eyes glowing. “Blowing off steam? By cornering a woman in an alley? By threatening a human?”

“It wouldn’t happen again.”

Raguel straightened slowly. “You’re from the Crescent Ridge pack,” he said.

They nodded immediately.

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Then you should know better.”

“We do,” the leader said quickly, his earlier arrogance completely gone. “We lost control. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re right. It won’t,” Raguel said.

Hope flickered across their faces.

“Report yourselves to the local council by dawn,” Raguel commanded. “Tell them I sent you. You will recount everything you attempted here tonight in detail.”

“Alpha,” the leader said, his voice breaking. “The council—”

“Will decide your punishment,” Raguel finished. “If I find out you fled, I will hunt you myself.”

“Yes, Alpha,” they chorused in a desperate, shaky unison.

“Get out of my sight.”

The boys didn’t wait for a second warning. They scrambled up and vanished out of the alley.

The silence that followed was deafening. I stood there, staring at the empty space they had occupied, my mind struggling to catch up. My heart was beating like a native drum in my ears. I looked at Raguel. He was still standing there, the red glow in his eyes slowly receding, leaving behind the dark, piercing gaze I remembered from that night.

“What is this?” I whispered, my voice finally breaking through the terror. “What the hell is going on?”

He turned to me, his expression unreadable. “I think you already know the answer to that, Lyra. The question is, do you believe in werewolves now?”

“No,” I snapped, a sudden, hot surge of anger bubbling up through my fear. I stepped away from the wall, pointing a trembling finger at the street where the boys had vanished. “I don’t know anything! You show up in my life, use me for trade with my husband, and now… now this? You told me it was real,” I continued, my chest rising and falling rapidly. “In my dream, you said it was real.”

His expression didn’t change.

“And now you’ve seen it,” he said simply.

Anger flared within me.

“Did you send them?”

Raguel’s brow furrowed. “Send them?”

“You sent them,” I accused, my voice gaining strength. “You sent them after me.”

His gaze darkened. “Watch your words, Lyra.”

“Why?” I shot back. “Isn’t that what this is? Some kind of lesson? You wanted to prove a point?”

“I don’t need to prove anything to you.”

“Then why?” I demanded. “Why is all of this happening? Why am I seeing things that don’t make sense? Why do they know what I said? Why do they smell something on me?”

He didn’t answer.

And that made it worse.

“I didn’t ask for this!” I continued, my voice cracking. “I didn’t ask to see any of this, to know any of this. I just want my life back!”

Raguel stepped toward me, his presence overwhelming. “I would never put you in danger to satisfy my ego, Lyra. Those were strays. Bottom-feeders who don’t know their place.”

“I don’t care what they are!” I was shaking now, the adrenaline fading into a deep, hollow exhaustion. “I want it to stop. The eyes, the teeth, the dreams… I can’t live like this. I was fine before. I was normal.”

“Lyra…” he said softly.

“Shut up! Just… revert it,” I begged, my anger dissolving into a pathetic, desperate plea. I grabbed the front of his shirt, my knuckles white. “Turn it off, please. Make me the way I was before I walked into your house. I want to go back to when all these things weren't happening to me.”

Raguel’s hands came up, hovering near my waist but not quite touching me. His gaze was pained. “I can’t do that, Lyra.”

I stared at him.

“What do you mean you can’t do that?”

“Because it doesn’t work that way.”

“Then make it work!” I snapped. “You’re clearly capable of impossible things, so fix it!”

“I can’t. It can't be undone. You have to learn to be okay with this.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” I cried, a sob finally breaking free. I lashed out, my fists thumping against his chest. It felt like hitting a wall of solid marble. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. Nothing makes sense anymore. I can’t even trust what I see. I hate you! I hate that you did this to me! I hate that Aaron sold me, and I hate that I’m standing here talking to a—a monster!”

I was breaking. The days of isolation, the slut-shaming from Aaron, the terrifying realization that my reality might be a lie—it all came crashing down at once. 

“No,” I moved away from him, voice sharper than I intended, “you have to undo this, Raguel. I don't care what you do or how you do, but you have to undo whatever it is that you did to me.”

“Lyra, listen to me.” he raised his hand to grab my shoulders, but I moved away before he could make contact.

“No, you listen to me.” his eyes glowed red at my tone, but I pushed in anyway, “If you don't undo it, I’m going to go to all the press that I know. I'm going to tell them about werewolves and whatnot. I'm sure that when it starts to affect your businesses, you'll be forced to shut me up by undoing what you did to me. I can't live like this; dreaming, seeing things, thinking of insane things like werewolves being real and…”

I looked up at him, my eyes brimming with tears, “Please make it all go away.”

“Fine,” he growled, “if that's what you want.”

And before I could even process his statement, his lips came crashing down against mine.